


Through the Playgrounds, Through the Fires

by Hecate



Category: Jennifer's Body (2009)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Female Friendship, Ghosts, Haunting, Possession, Slice of Life, Unresolved Sexual Tension, past Chip Dove/Anita "Needy" Lesnicki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 23:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: Jennifer is dead. That doesn't mean she is going to leave Needy.





	Through the Playgrounds, Through the Fires

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Track_04's prompt for Chocolate Box.
> 
> Title & quote at the end by Thea Gilmore.

Life in a mental asylum sucks.

Life without Jennifer sucks, too.

~*~

On her first night at the asylum, Needy dreams of Jennifer dying, dreams of that fucking wanna-be rock-star with a knife in his hand and Jennifer beneath him, screaming. Begging.

Needy dreams of blood.

Wakes up, and Jennifer is dead, is gone, and Needy's head is crowded with the other Jennifer, the Jennifer that came after. The one that wasn't quite herself any more, the one that wasn't quite Needy's.

It still hurts.

Needy spends the rest of the night staring into the darkness. She can't stop thinking of Jennifer's second death, can't stop seeing Jennifer beneath her, Jennifer's eyes wild and strange.

Needy should have saved her.

But there was nothing to save. Not any more. Not after Melody Lane and not after Chip.

~*~

Jennifer never liked Chip.

Sometimes, when Chip was above Needy, his mouth on her neck, his hands grabbing for her, Needy thought that this was the reason she ever agreed to go on a date with him.

Why she let him touch her.

Needy tells herself that it doesn't matter any more.

But somehow, it still does.

~*~

Jennifer, Needy knows, would hate the food in this place, would hate the color of the walls and the colors of the yard.

She would hate the orange they all wear most of the time. She was never good at sharing, after all; she always wanted to be the sun instead of one of too many stars.

Most of the time, that was okay. Because sometimes, Needy was Jennifer's sun.

~*~

The bite hurts.

It always hurts.

~*~

It's Monday.

Not that it matters, not in this place, not much does. The days just pass by, therapy and rounds in the yard and food she doesn't care about.

But it's Monday, and it's as good a day to start a fight as any.

So Needy does.

She is the kicker, after all.

Needy hits some woman in the face, her fist connecting with soft flesh, and she hits her again. Goes after her when she tries to twist away from Needy, her hands balled into fists, and a sharp feeling in her body, triumph and hunger. She hears a scream for help, and she hears a furious roar, inhuman and clear, and she loves the sounds around her, the chaos.

Somebody pulls her away, throws her against the wall with rough hands. But she's up again in a split-second, and she's snarling at the orderly, ready to attack.

Needy hurls herself at him.

Jennifer knocks her straight on her ass.

Needy shakes her head, frowns, stares up at Jennifer, at the familiar smile. Says, "The fuck are you doing here?"

Jennifer blinks out of existence.

Then, there are the guards.

The world goes black.

~*~

Needy wakes up.

She's in her room, and she's alone.

Disappointment stretches out inside of her, and it's an ugly and angry feeling.

It's stupid, too. Jennifer was a murderer, and Needy killed her for it. Nobody needs Jennifer to play Jesus a second time.

~*~

Another day, barely distinguishable from all the days before. The woman Needy attacked throws her soup at her. Needy retaliates with her coffee. The orderlies pull them apart, and she spends the rest of the day in her room.

Somewhere else, life goes on. Life _changes_.

But not here. Not for her.

~*~

She wakes up and Jennifer is sitting at the end of her bed, staring at her.

Needy screams.

And Jennifer smiles, says, “Drama queen,” before vanishing.

Needy stays awake for the rest of the night.

~*~

“So how are you feeling?” the therapist asks Needy.

Needy doesn't answer.

The therapist leans back and smiles. “It's okay if you don't want to talk. We can just sit here.”

Needy snorts, leans back in her own chair. Wishes that there was a couch. She is so fucking tired.

“Jennifer's mother called me,” the therapist says. “She asked about you.”

Needy breathes in.

Remembers birthday parties and cakes and laughter, her mother standing with Jennifer's, their faces bright with love.

Needy breathes out.

Throws herself forward to punch the therapist.

Screams when somebody pulls her off, pulls her away.

Sees Jennifer before her world goes black once more.

~*~

Jennifer is there when Needy wakes up in her room. She is sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, and she is looking up at Needy with a strange expression on her face, distant and sad.

Needy keeps quiet.

She sits up slowly, pulls her knees against her chest and wraps her arms around them. Closes her eyes and opens them again. Jennifer is still there.

"Do you remember the first time I got drunk?" Jennifer asks, and her voice sounds different than it used to, sounds as if there's more distance between them than Needy can see.

Needy swallows, looks away. Says, finally, "Yeah," and doesn't elaborate.

"I slept over, and you told your mom I was sick and you kept on making yourself puke, so she would think we both had some stomach bug," Jennifer says.

“I think she knew anyway,” Needy answers.

Jennifer smiles. “She probably did.”

They are silent then, moments passing by before Needy speaks again, looking away from Jennifer. “She doesn't visit me.”

A sharp chuckle, a sound filled with bitterness and fury, and Needy closes her eyes again when Jennifer answers. “I miss my mom.”

~*~

"I think I'm not there when I'm not around you," Jennifer says.

 _Then don't leave,_ Needy thinks.

~*~

Low Shoulder plays on the radio in the common room and a familiar melody fills the room, fills Needy's head. She wants to cover her ears, wants to scratch the song out of herself.

"I hate those guys," Jennifer says.

"I know," Needy answers and doesn't look at her. She just stares out of the window instead, pretends that she's alone, that she isn't talking to the ghost of her best friend. Not that it would change a thing. They all think she's crazy anyway.

Jennifer laughs. Asks, “You wanna hear something funny?”

Needy shakes her head.

Jennifer snorts, coughs. Says: “Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

Needy groans.

Jennifer laughs.

For a moment, brief and over all too quickly, life is normal.

Life is good.

~*~

Needy dreams of Chip in the water, dreams of him dying in her arms, and she wakes up with a scream of rage and grief. And she wants to destroy something, wants to punish somebody, because it wasn't fair.

Chip shouldn't have died, not like that.

Colin should still be alive.

And Jonas.

And Jennifer.

~*~

"Do you remember the fire?" Jennifer asks. She stands in a corner of the room this time, drawing lines on the wall, her fingertips not making any sound as she drags them along the concrete.

Needy curls around herself and pulls up her blanket. Says, "Yeah."

A soft sigh like a weak wind caught between trees. "Me, too."

Before the fire, before Jennifer changing, Needy would have gotten up and crossed the distance between them. She would have reached out for Jennifer. Now, she turns to the wall. Thinks that her anger is better than trying to touch Jennifer and finding nothing.

~*~

Jennifer is still wearing the clothes she wore on the night she died.

Needy can't get over that.

~*~

The letters never stop coming. Perverts and religious fanatics and people who celebrate her for killing a whore, a fake Barbie girl, that stupid bitch.

The therapist tells her that it's her choice but it would be healthier to stop reading them. Needy never listens.

Instead, she writes replies. And she tells them that Jennifer used to be different, that Jennifer used to be her best friend. Doesn't tell them that she loved her. And she never sends the letters.

Dreams herself back into her own room with Jennifer sleeping next to her, warm and alive.

~*~

“Knock knock,” Jennifer says.

It's the middle of the night.

Needy covers her eyes with her hands and tells the ghost in her room to fuck off.

~*~

It's a surprisingly beautiful day, and Needy sits at the edge of the yard with closed eyes, the sun warm on her face. It's quiet, for once, the weather calming all of them, and Needy gets lost in the moment.

And she doesn't think of the life outside the walls surrounding her, doesn't think of her future behind them. Doesn't think of the monster she killed and the girl she lost. 

Just sits in the sun and is, for one afternoon, not angry.

Later, with her body still warm with memories of the sun, Needy smiles when Jennifer sits down opposite her during dinner. She kicks out at her gently like she used to through the years, the movement so very familiar. Hits nothing.

Through the window, she sees the smoke of a nearby factory.

~*~

Jennifer is in Needy's bed, stretching out carelessly. Needy stares at her legs.

Remembers Jennifer's lips on hers, soft and warm and perfect, remembers Jennifer pulling her in and sinking into the bed beneath Needy. 

She says, "That's my bed," and doesn't argue when Jennifer rolls towards the wall. Instead, she slips under the covers and she looks at Jennifer until she falls asleep.

~*~

“I think,” Jennifer says while Needy eats runny eggs for breakfast, the taste as disappointing as every meal has been in the asylum so far, “I think I could always find you.”

Needy remembers the night after the fire, of Jennifer in her house, half-crazy and so very strange. Hungry. Maybe Jennifer is right.

Maybe this is it, Jennifer and her.

Sandbox love never dies, after all.

~*~

Low Shoulder receives an award. It's prestigious, it's important, and that damn song is on the radio again. It's everywhere, and Needy hits an orderly, and she kicks a nurse, and she doesn't stop screaming even when they throw her in isolation.

Low Shoulder is winning awards, and Needy is in an asylum, and Jennifer is dead.

It's unacceptable.

And she knows, with sudden and complete certainty, that it's going to change.

Needy scratches the bite mark Jennifer left behind all those weeks ago. And she imagines Jennifer in her bloody clothes, and she sees her in her ball dress, and Needy is floating. Her body is lighter than it has ever been before, filled with an angry power that is strange, alien. A power that was Jennifer's for a while, she thinks, a power that is hers now.

Needy hasn't felt this good since the concert in Melody Lane, since Jennifer took her hand and it felt, just for the briefest of moments, that she was hers. But she had lost her then, too.

Jennifer is waiting for her outside, and she grins when she sees Needy. “A ghost and her murderer walk out of a mental asylum...”

Needy walks past her without a word.

Behind her, Jennifer laughs.

~*~

Needy hated the hiking trips her mom forced her on during the few summer vacations they could afford. Hated them because it was always the same scenery, trees and a trail snaking through them, the summer sky hidden by dark greens and browns. Hated them because they were exhausting and boring and because Jennifer wasn't there.

It's different now, following the road with sure steps, the darkness opening up to her with ease. And Jennifer by her side. It feels as if they are going somewhere.

~*~

They sit together outside of a gas station, the lights dim and flickering above them, the stink of gasoline filling the air.

Needy is hungry.

But she's not Jennifer, isn't what Jennifer turned into, and there are still miles between her and the men who took Jennifer away from her.

"This place sucks," Jennifer says.

"Yeah," Needy replies, and it feels like Saturday night at Melody Lane, standing outside, Jennifer pissed off because that's all their town has to offer and Needy only there because Jennifer asked her.

She leans towards Jennifer then, because that's what she always used to do, and it's in the middle of the night somewhere lonely. If she could touch a ghost, it would be now. And for a few seconds, there's a cool wind across her skin, like the memory of Jennifer's touch; for a few seconds, there's something she can _feel_.

But it fades away.

“Don't leave me,” Needy says.

“Never,” Jennifer promises.

~*~

“You wanna hear something funny,” Needy whispers, her hand raised to knock at the door. “A ghost and her best friend walk into the hotel room of the sickos that murdered her.”

For a moment, Jennifer feels almost solid next to her, warm.

Alive.

It's just Needy's imagination, she knows that; it's a lie. But it's a good moment nevertheless.

“Pretty nice start,” Jennifer says. ”How does it go on?”

Needy knocks.

~*~

_I'm gonna haunt you_  
In your ashes and your smoke  
Like the punch line to a joke  
I'll be holding your hand 


End file.
